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AUTHOR: 


WHEELER,  ARTHUR 


TITLE: 


PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS 


PLACE: 


[PENSYLVANIA] 


DA  TE : 


[1917?] 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


Master  Negative  it 


«i4.r^9i.^ 


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W hee  1  e r  ,    A r  t. liu  r    Leslie- 
Tiie    plot   of    tfie   Epidi  cu$.rh[  micro!  onn] . 
I Pensy i vania , rbBryn    Mawr    Coi lege, rCi9J  7?  1 , 
p.    ?7/^-?64. 

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[Reprinted  from  the  American  Journal  of  Philoijogy,  Vo1.XXXVIII,3, 
Whole  No.  151,  July,  August,  September,  1917.] 


AMERICAN 


JOURNAL    OF    PHILOLOGY 


Vol.  XXXVIII,  3. 


Whole  No.  151. 


I.— THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 

The  plot  of  the  Epidicus  has  long  been  a  puzzle  to  scholars. 
Joseph  Scaliger,  in  1558,  was  the  first  to  note  difficulties  in  the 
play  and  the  problem  was  touched  upon  in  19 13  by  Friedrich 
Leo.'  Between  these  two  extremes  lies  the  work  of  a  long 
line  of  scholars,  but  the  most  important  contributions  have 
been  made  since  the  time  of  Ladewig  (1841).  All  the  more 
serious  difficulties  are  probably  known,  but  it  is  only  within 
the  last  twenty-five  years  that  solutions  have  been  proposed 
which  may  be  taken  as  the  basis  of  a  fresh  examination  of  the 
whole  problem.  By  criticizing  and  extending  the  work  already 
accomplished  and  by  bringing  to  bear  upon  it  some  new  points 
of  view  it  is  now  possible,  in  my  opinion,  to  formulate  a  more 
acceptable  result  than  has  hitherto  been  attained. 

The  plot  is  so  complicated  that  a  careful  outline  is  necessary. 
The  exposition  consists  of  three  scenes  (vv.  1-180)  the  first  of 
which  is  a  dialogue  between  Epidicus  and  Thesprio,  slaves 
from  an  Athenian  household.  Thesprio  has  just  returned 
with  his  young  master  Stratippocles  from  the  army  which  has 
been  besieging  Thebes.  At  his  departure  from  Athens  Stra- 
tippocles had  commissioned  Epidicus  to  secure  for  him  a 
certain  Acropolistis  with  whom  at  the  time  he  was  in  love. 
Epidicus  had  accomplished  this  by  persuading  the  young  man's 
father  to  buy  the  girl  in  the  belief  that  she  was  his  long  lost 
daughter  (87-90).  But  Epidicus  now  learns  from  Thesprio 
that  the  fickle  youth  has  fallen  in  love  with  a  Theban  captive — 

*  Gesch.  der  rom.  Litt.,  p.  133.    For  Scaliger's  remarks  see  p.  246,  n.  2. 
16 


238 


AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


239 


quot  illic  homo  animos  habet?  he  exclaims  in  dismay.  But 
Thesprio  has  more  unpleasant  news :  that  Stratippocles  has 
borrowed  the  money  (40  minae)  with  which  to  purchase  his 
new  flame  from  a  money-lender  at  Thebes  who  is  follownig 
him  to  Athens  to  collect  the  debt  and  hand  over  the  girl.  Ut 
ego  interii  basilice!  is  the  cry  of  Epidicus,  who  forecasts  the 
damage  to  his  skin  when  his  old  master  Periphanes  discover> 

the  first  trick.  .     r  •      . 

In  the  second  scene  Stratippocles  appears  with  his  friena 
Chaeribulus  at  whose  house  he  is  stopping  in  order  to  keep 
out  of  his  father's  sight  until  he  can  complete  the  purchase  ot 
his  latest  sweetheart.  Like  most  young  men  in  the  plays  Chae- 
ribulus is  'broke'  and  quite  unable  to  provide  his  friend  willi 
the  necessary  money.  And  so  perforce  they  fall  back  on  the 
wily  resourcefulness  of  Epidicus.  At  this  point  the  slave, 
who  has  been  eavesdropping  in  the  conventional  manner,  step> 
forward  and,  after  some  reproaches  to  his  master  and  the  usual 
threats  on  the  latter's  part,  promises  to  cheat  Periphanes  (a 
second  time)  out  of  enough  money  to  purchase  the  captive  girl, 
if  Stratippocles  will  keep  out  of  his  father's  sight.  He  hints 
that  Acropolistis,  the  pseudo-daughter  of  Periphanes  and 
former  love  of  Stratippocles,  can  be  disposed  of  to  a  certain 

Euboicus  miles  (153)- 

The  third  scene  introduces  Periphanes  and  his  old  friend 
Apoecides.  From  the  conversation  of  the  old  gentlemen  we 
learn  that  Periphanes,  whose  wife  is  dead,  contemplates  mar- 
riage with  a  poor  woman  of  good  birth  who  had  borne  him  a 
daughter— the  very  daughter  whom  he  thinks  he  has  purchased 
in  the  person  of  Acropolistis.  Neither  the  mother  nor  the 
daughter  are  named  at  this  point,  but  the  old  man  is  planning 
to  marry  off  his  son  as  soon  as  the  latter  returns,  for  he  has 
heard  that  the  youth  in  amorem  haerere  apud  nescioquani 
fidicinam.     At  about  this  point  the  action  begins. 

Epidicus  overhears  the  old  man's  intentions  concerning  bi^ 
son  and  makes  it  the  basis  of  his  trickery.  He  advises  Peri- 
phanes—after  much  apparent  diffidence  at  his  own  presump- 
tion in  giving  such  advice!— to  marry  off  Stratippocles  and 
(as  a  preliminary)  to  purchase  the  youth's  fidicina  and  sell 
her  out  of  the  lover's  reach  before  he  returns  from  Thebev 
This  proposal  jumps  with  the  old  man's  humor,  for  he  does 


> 


)    i 


I     I 


not  know  that  his  son  is  already  in  Athens  and  that  he  himself 
has  already  purchased  and  has  in  his  house  his  son's  (former) 
sweetheart  Acropolistis.  Epidicus  suggests  that  the  purchase 
will  be  a  good  investment  since  a  miles  Rhodius  (300)  is  dead 
in  love  with  the  girl  and  will  take  her  off  the  old  man's  hands 
at  an  advanced  price.  It  is  arranged  that  Periphanes,  to  avoid 
arousing  his  son's  suspicions,  shall  keep  in  the  background, 
and  that  Epidicus  and  Apoecides  (the  latter  to  guarantee  good 
faith)  shall  transact  the  bargain  with  the  girl's  master,  the  leno. 
Apoecides  accordingly  departs  for  the  forum,  Periphanes 
goes  into  his  house  for  the  money,  and  Epidicus  (306  ff.),  who 
must  of  course  produce  some  girl  to  play  the  part  of  the  sup- 
posed sweetheart,  states  that  he  will  hire  a  fidicina  and  coach 
her  (praenionstrabitur)  how  to  fool  Apoecides.  Apparently, 
although  this  is  not  here  stated,  the  girl  is  to  submit  to  a  sham 
purchase. 

Thus  Epidicus  secures  the  money  which  he  hands  over  at 
once  to  Stratippocles  for  the  purchase  of  the  Theban  captive, 
with  the  characteristic  trickster's  remark,  Dum  tibi  ego  placeam 
atque  obsequar,  meum  tergum  flocci  f acio !  He  then  professes 
to  tell  his  plan  to  the  young  men,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  not 
even  an  intelligent  audience,  to  say  nothing  of  the  rough  crowd 
that  viewed  the  plays  in  the  second  century  before  Christ,  could 
understand  this  plan  as  it  appears  in  our  text  (353-377).  I 
shall  return  to  this  point  later. 

In  the  next  scene  (382  ff.)  Apoecides  brings  from  the  forum 
the  supposed  sweetheart  whom  he  thinks  he  has  bought,  but 
who  has  in  reality  been  hired  by  Epidicus.  She  is  the  third 
young  woman  in  the  play  and  we  shall  call  her  the  hired  fidi- 
cina. since  no  name  is  given  to  her  in  our  manuscripts.  Apoe- 
cides had  not  seen  the  leno  and  (of  course !)  had  not  witnessed 
the  transfer  of  any  money,  but  he  had  heard  Epidicus  talk  with 
the  girl  and  he  is  full  of  compliments  for  the  slave's  cleverness 
(414 ff.)  in  making  her  believe  herself  hired  to  play  at  a  sacri- 
fice, not  bought.  The  audience  of  course  assumes  in  accordance 
with  Epidicus's  plan  that  she  is  acting  in  collusion  with  the 
trickster.  It  is  therefore  a  good  deal  of  a  jolt  when  in  the 
following  scenes  (475  ft*.) — the  beginning  of  the  denouement — 
both  her  words  and  actions  absolutely  contradict  this  assump- 
tion.    The  soldier  appears  with  the  intention  of  buying  from 


240 


AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


Periphanes  the  girl  for  whose  favor  he  and  Stratippocles  had 
been  rivals  (really,  of  course,  Acropolistis,  the  pseudo-daugh- 
ter). When  the  hired  fidicina  is  produced,  whom  the  soldier 
indignantly  rejects,  she  proves  that  she  sincerely  thought  herself 
merely  hired  to  play  at  a  sacrifice  for  a  senex  whom  she  does 
not  even  know  by  name !  The  audience,  therefore,  must  make 
a  new  assumption :  that  she  too  has  been  fooled  by  Epidicus. 
But  still  more  confusion  is  in  store  for  Periphanes.  No 
sooner  has  he  driven  away  in  a  rage  the  hired  fidicina  than 
his  own  early  fiame  Philippa  arrives  searching  for  her  daugh- 
ter (and  his).  'In  this  scene  (526 fT.,  the  drayvwptat?)  and  the 
follow^ing  (57off.)  we  learn  at  last  important  facts  of  the  old 
man's  previous  life — facts  which  belong  to  the  preliminary 
history  of  the  play :  that  he  had  loved  Philippa  in  Epidaurus, 
that  Telestis,  their  daughter  whose  name  is  now  given,  was 
born  in  Thebes,  that  he  had  never  seen  the  girl  since  her  early 
childhood,  that  Epidicus  however  had  been  in  Thebes  more 
recently,  and  that  on  Epidicus's  authority  he  had  learned  that 
she  was  a  captive  and  had,  as  he  supposed,  bought  her.  But 
when,  to  console  the  grief-stricken  mother,  he  calls  from  the 
house  this  daughter  (really  pseudo-daughter  Acropolistis)  and 
when  Philippa  indignantly  rejects  her,  his  anger  though 
pathetic  is  certainly  comic  (581  fT.)  : 

Quid?  ego  lenocinium  facio  qui  habeam  alienas  domi 
Atque  argentum  egurgitem  domo  prosus?  etc. 

Acropolistis  is  amusingly  impudent,  but  she  makes  a  clean 
breast  of  everything  and  lays  the  blame  where  it  belongs — on 
Epidicus.  Thus  the  first  trick— the  trick  which  had  been 
already  accomplished  when  the  play  opened — is  revealed. 

Little  more  remains.  The  old  men  buy  straps  and  set  out  to 
find  Epidicus,  but  that  worthy  saves  himself  by  'recognizing' 
in  his  young  master's  latest  love  (the  captive  girl),  Telestis, 
his  old  master's  daughter — not  a  very  valuable  service  since 
the  discovery  is  inevitable.  The  ecstasy  of  Stratippocles  is  of 
course  short-lived,  and  he  says  resignedly  (652), 

Perdidisti  et  repperisti  me,  soror, 

to  which  the  unfeeling  slave  rejoins 

Stultus:  tace. 
Tibi  quidem  quod  ames  domi  praestost — fidicina— opera  mea, 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


241 


a  suggestion  that  the  young  man  may  transfer  his  affections 
back  to  Acropolistis ! 

The  play  ends  with  the  pardon  and  manumission  of  Epidicus, 
both  richly  undeserved,  and  the  result  is  well  summed  up 
in  the  line, 

Hie  is  homost  qui  libertatem  malitia  invenit  sua. 

One  who  has  had  the  patience  to  follow  the  preceding  out- 
line will  realize  the  extremely  involved  nature  of  the  plot. 
But  the  plot  is  not  merely  involved ;  it  is  full  of  difificulties  and 
obscurities  even  for  the  most  superficial  reader.  To  these  more 
or  less  obvious  dif^culties  careful  study  has  of  course  added 
many  more  which  are  not  so  obvious.  I  shall  first  attempt  to 
state  and,  so  far  as  possible,  classify  these  difBculties. 

The  main  problem  will  be  simplified  by  eliminating  in  the 
first  place  a  number  of  defects  which  may  be  regarded  as  of 
no  importance.  In  v.  14  Thesprio  is  represented  as  returning 
home  by  way  of  the  partus ^  but  in  vv.  217,  221 — where,  to  be 
sure,  Epidicus  is  lying — the  soldiers  including  Stratippocles 
are  returning  byway  of  the  porta.  It  is  easy  to  alter  the  text 
of  V.  14  (so  Ussing,  Goetz)  and  the  conjecture  is  attractive 
because  in  v.  217,  where  only  portam  is  possible,  the  manuscripts 
have  both  portam  and  portum.  But  the  contradiction  may  be 
attributed  with  equal  probability  to  Plautine  carelessness  ^  and 
the  tendency  of  recent  editors  is  to  leave  the  text  unchanged, 
cf.  Leo,  Goetz-Schoell,  Lindsay,  Goetz. 

The  passages  alluding  to  the  sums  of  money  paid  for  the 
slave  girls  are  not  consistent  (53  f.,  122,  141-142,  252,  347,  366, 
406  ff.,  467,  646  f.,  703).  Two  girls  were  purchased,  Acropo- 
listis and  Telestis,  and  we  should  regard  the  inconsistency  as 
of  no  importance  -  if  vv.  363-370  did  not  indicate  that  the  sums 
ought  to  agree.^     The  price  of  Acropolistis  is  stated  by  Peri- 

^Langrehr  (Miscellanea  philologa,  1876,  p.  17)  noted  that  in  the  Amph. 
Plautus  makes  Thebes  a  seaport !  Langen  (Plautin.  Studien,  1886,  p. 
138)  remarks  that  the  Greek  model  may  have  had  no  specific  word  at 
this  point. 

•This  is  the  general  view,  cf.  Langrehr,  op.  cit.,  p.  16,  Langen.  op. 
cit..  p.   139. 

'Ladewig  (Zeitschr.  f.  die  Alt..  1841,  col.  io8q)  notes  several  of  these 
discrepancies  and  cites  Taubmann  who  believed  that  in  v.  366  Epid.  is 


242 


AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


phanes  ( the  highest  authority !)  as3ominae  (703)  andEpidicus 
agrees,  but  at  v.  366  her  value  is  50  minae.  The  Theban  cap- 
tive (Telestis)  cost  Stratippocles  40  minae  (53  f-)  together 
with  interest  at  the  rate  of  a  nummus  per  diem  per  minam. 
The  interest  is  later  merely  alluded  to  in  general  terms  (252, 
296,  306)  or  entirely  forgotten  (122,  141  f.,  296  ad  quadraginta, 
646,  708),  and  Epidicus  actually  secures  50  minae  (347,467). 
But  the  arithmetic  of  Plautus  is  usually  very  bad. 

At  V.  107  Stratippocles  has  told  Chaeribulus  that  the  captiva 
(Telestis)  is  genere  prognatam  bono.  Langrehr  argued  that 
since  Stratippocles  knew  the  girl  to  be  of  good  birth,  he  must 
have  known  her  to  be  his  sister.  Schredinger  and  Langen 
denied  this  (rightly),  and  in  his  later  work  Langrehr  so  far 
receded  from  his  view  as  to  say  that  at  least  the  poet  ought  to 
tell  us  how  Stratippocles  got  his  knowledge  of  the  girl's  birth. 
On  this  we  may  remark  that  the  youth  may  have  known  her 
good  birth,  her  true  name,  and  even  her  father's  name  without 
suspecting  that  she  was  related  to  him,  since  Periphanes  had 
naturally  concealed  the  whole  affair  from  him,  cf.  166  ff.  The 
point  is  not  a  serious  one  in  the  Latin  play,  but  the  passage 
has  some  bearing  on  the  nature  of  the  Greek   original  (see 

p.  249). 

Periphanes  and  Apoecides  do  not  seem  to  notice  or  even  to 
be  aware  of  the  bustle  caused  by  the  return  of  the  soldiers 
from  Thebes  (2o8ff.).  Langen  ^  finds  difficulty  in  this,  since 
they  know  that  Stratippocles  is  with  the  army.  It  is  however 
an  unimportant  detail. 

Langen  ^  suspects  retractatio  in  the  long  passage  on  woman's 
dress  (225  ff.).  Retractatio  has  not  been  proved,  in  my  opinion, 
and  at  any  rate  the  passage  has  no  bearing  on  the  difficulties 

of  the  plot. 

Like  every  other  play  of  Plautus  the  Epidicus  is  often  repe- 
titious and  numerous  passages  have  been  suspected  by  various 
scholars  on  this  account.  The  tendency  of  recent  Plautine 
scholarship  is  to  abandon  such  criticism.     A  good  illustration  of 


merely  boasting  and  that  in  vv.  364  ff.  he  plans  to  go  to  the  leno  and 
instruct  him  to  say  that  to-day  he  has  received  50  minae  so  that  the  sum 
will  tally  with  that  just  given  to  Epid.,  if  the  old  men  question  the  leno. 
'  Plant.  Stud.,  p.  144. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


243 


f 


f 


the  changed  attitude  maybe  found  by  comparing  Goetz's  Ditto- 
graphien  im  Plautustexte  (1875)  and  the  same  scholar's  major 
edition  of  the  Epidicus  ( 1878)  with  the  minor  edition  of  Goetz- 
Schoell  (1895)  and  the  second  edition  of  the  Epidicus  (1902). 
After  twenty-five  years  Goetz  admits  the  genuineness  of  nearly 
all  the  passages  which  he  formerly  suspected.  Leo  ( 1895)  and 
Lindsay  (1905)  also  bracket  very  few  passages.^  The  sus- 
pected passages  which  affect  the  plot  will  be  considered  at  the 

proper  places. 

But  there  are  serious  difficulties.  Among  these  I  shall  m- 
clude  some  which,  although  unimportant  in  themselves,  never- 
theless may  have  some  bearing  on  the  more  important. 

When  the  play  opens  Periphanes  has  already  been  tricked 
by  Epidicus  into  the  purchase  of  Acropolistis  (his  son's  amica) 
in  the  belief  that  she  is  his  daughter.  How  was  the  old  man 
persuaded  that  she  was  his  daughter  ?  This  question  is  not 
answered  by  the  expository  portion  of  the  play  and  remains 
unanswered  until  vv.  564-566  from  which  we  learn  that  Epi- 
dicus had  told  Periphanes  that  his  daughter  had  been  captured 
and  was  in  Athens,  and  vv.635  ff.,  from  which  we  assume  that 
l£pidicus  had  been  in  Thebes  recently  enough  to  be  able  to 
recognize  Telestis. 

Periphanes  planned  to  marry  Philippa  (i66ff.),but  there  is 
no  further  reference  to  this  important  feature  of  the  plot — not 
even  when  Philippa  and  Periphanes  meet  and  recognize  each 
other  (526ff.).2  Before  this  scene  we  do  not  know  that  Peri- 
])hanes  had  ever  been  in  Thebes  or  Epidaurus,  and  the  only 
information  vouchsafed  by  the  poet  concerning  the  old  man's 
past  life  is  that  he  had  a  daughter  by  a  poor  woman  of  good 
birth  and  that  he  believes  himself  to  have  purchased  that 
daughter  through  the  agency  of  Epidicus. 

^  Goetz-Schoell  mark  as  retractatio  v v.  431-434.  and  as  interpolated 
vv.  109-111,353  (but  cf.  Leo's  punctuation),  384  f-  (in  part),  419,  518-520. 
Goetz  (1902)  marks  as  retract,  vv.  431-434,  and  as  interpol.  353.  384  f-  d" 
part),  419.    Leo   brackets    385,  393,  518-520.    Lindsay  brackets  384 f. 

(in  part),  419. 

'Ladewig  first  called  attention  to  this  omission  (op.  cit.,  col.  1086 f.), 
adding  that  the  gifts  taken  to  Telestis  by  Epidicus  (639-640)  were  proba- 
bly sent  by  Periphanes  and  that  the  slave's  lie  about  her  capture  roused 
the  old  man's  memories  of  Philippa.  The  verb  afferre  (639)  lends  some 
support  to  the  first  suggestion. 


244 


AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


245 


A  marriage  is  being  planned  for  Stratippocles  in  the  early 
part  of  the  play  (190,  267,  283,  361),  but  there  is  no  reference 
to  it  later,^  indeed  the  only  reference  to  the  young  man's  future 
is  Epidicus's  hint  (653)  that  he  may  console  himself  for  the 
loss  of  Telestis  by  returning  to  Acropolistis,  his  discarded  flame. 

The  allusions  to  the  leno  cause  difficulties  (274  f.,  288  f., 
294  f.,  364-370, 410-421, 445-501 ).  In  accordance  with  the  first 
three  passages  Apoecides  and  Epidicus  are  to  go  to  the  leno 
and  purchase  the  fidicina  whom,  as  Epidicus  falsely  asserts, 
Stratippocles  loves.  The  leno  is  apparently  the  same  from 
whom  Acropolistis  had  been  purchased  two  days  before,  for 
this  is  implied  by  Epidicus  (364-370)  who  intends  to  deceive 
him  into  makmg  a  statement  to  the  old  men  (should  they 
approach  him  after  the  transaction )2  which  will  be  taken  by 
them  as  a  guarantee  that  he  has  just  received  50  minae  for  the 
fidicina,  whereas  he  himself  means  the  money  which  he  received 
two  days  earlier  for  Acropolistis.  But  the  plan,  whatever  its 
exact  nature,  was  not  carried  out,^  for  the  accounts  of  Apoe- 
cides (410-421)  and  of  the  fidicina  (495-501,  cf.  486-487)  show- 
that  Apoecides  did  not  see*  the  leno  at  all  and  there  is  no 
reference  to  an  interrogation  of  him  by  anybody.  Since 
Apoecides  went  along  with  Epidicus  when  the  money  for  the 
fidicina  was  carried  to  the  leno  (291  f .,  295,  303-305,  374,  41a- 
421),  an  important  part  of  the  slave's  plan  must  have  consisted 
in  convincing  Apoecides  that  the  money  (which  was  really 
handed  over  to  Stratippocles)  had  been  paid  to  the  leno,  but  we 
are  not  told  how  the  deception  of  Apoecides  was  accomplished. 
The  senex  was  certainly  hoodwinked  in  some  way  about  the 
money,  but  the  only  part  of  the  transaction  that  he  reports 
concerns  the  hiring  or,  as  he  thinks,  the  purchase  of  the  fidicina 

*Langrehr  first  noted  this  and  explained  it  as  one  of  the  results  of 
contaminatio  (op.  cit.,  pp.  11,  16).     See  p.  249  below. 

'This  is  R.  Mueller's  interpretation  (De  Plauti  Epidico,  1865),  and  it 
seems  to  be  the  essential  meaning  of  line  365,  whether  we  retain  the 
manuscript  reading  si  quod  ad  eum  adveniam  (with  Leo)  or  adopt  Cam- 
erarius's  Siqui  ad  eum  adveniant  (with  Goetz-Schoell) ,  for  in  either  case 
the  leno  is  to  say  (dicat)  that  he  has  received  money,  etc.  The  sums  do 
not  agree  since  the  price  of  Acropolistis  was  thirty  ntinae  according  to 
the  best  authority  (703). 

'Ladewig  first  noted  this,  op.  cit.,  col.  1087, 

*Langrehr,  Miscell.  Philol.,  pp.  13-14. 


I 


> 


(410-421).     This    difficulty  naturally   suggests    those   which 
concern  the  girl  herself. 

The  fidicina  is  alluded  to  or  actually  appears  (in  vv.  287-305, 
313-318,  364-376,  411-420,  495-516).  Epidicus's  plan  is  clear 
enou«-h.  The  old  men  have  heard  that  Stratippocles  is  in  love 
with  a  fidicina  (191),  and  Epidicus  plans  to  hire  a  fidicina 
whom  he  will  instruct  beforehand  how  to  deceive  the  old  men 
by  pretending  that  she  has  been  bought  (312-318,371-376). 
The  account  of  Apoecides  (411-420)  is  in  harmony  with  this, 
i.  e.  if  the  fidicina  has  been  coached  beforehand  by  Epidicus, 
the  old  man's  words  merely  indicate  that  she  plays  her  part  so 
well  that  he  believes  her  a  dupe  of  Epidicus.  But  the  girl's 
own  actions  and  words,  when  she  appears  (495  fif.),  contradict 
the  plan:  she  believes  herself  hired  to  play  at  a  sacrifice^  for 
an  old  man  (500  f.),  she  has  not  even  heard  the  name  of  Apoe- 
cides (496),  and  she  does  not  know  that  she  is  talking  with  the 
very  Periphanes  about  whose  son  she  has  heard  gossip  (508). 
Far  from  playing  the  conspirator,  as  the  plan  demanded,  she 
acts  as  though  she  herself  were  a  dupe.-  There  is  therefore 
either  a  change  of  plan,  i.  e.  Epidicus  had  not  coached  but  had 
deceived  her,  or  else  she  suddenly  decides  to  tell  the  truth 
when  the  words  of  the  soldier  show  (475  ff.)  that  the  jig  is  up.' 
In  neither  case  is  there  any  hint  of  the  change. 

*Did  Periphanes  contemplate  any  sacrifice  at  all?  At  v.  314  Epid., 
debating  what  fidicina  to  show  to  Apoecides,  apparently  refers  to  a 
sacrifice  for  which  Periphanes  had  ordered  him  to  hire  a  fidicina  and 
he  determines  to  palm  this  girl  off  on  Apoecides  as  the  supposed  arnica 
of  Stratippocles.  If  a  real  sacrifice  was  being  arranged,  then  the  girl 
was  actually  hired,  as  she  says  (500),  and  Apoecides  was  witnessing  a 
bona  fide  transaction  (411  ff.),  although  he  believed  the  girl  a  dupe.  But 
at  V.  416  both  old  men  seem  to  take  Epidicus's  statement  to  the  girl 
(that  she  was  being  hired)  as  a  clever  lie,  and  Epid.  certainly  gave  a 
wrong  reason  for  a  sacrifice  (for  the  son's  safe  return),  since  early  in 
the  day,  cf.  mane  (314).  the  old  men  did  not  know  that  Stratippocles 
would  return  that  day.  Or  do  they  regard  only  this  reason  as  a  lie? 
Langrehr  meets  the  difficulty  by  regarding 'mane  .  .  .  sibi'  (314-316)  as 
a  quotation,  i.  e.  Epid.  quotes  what  he  will  say  to  Apoecides.  This 
would  eliminate  the  sacrifice  entirely.  Dziatzko's  view  is  preferable, 
see  p.  249. 

'Langrehr  noted  most  of  the  difficulties,  op.  cit.,  pp.  11  ff.  Cf.  also 
Scaliger,  note  5  below. 

'  So  Langen,  who  admits  however  that  she  ought  to  say  something  to 
indicate  her  change  of  heart  just  as  Acropolistis  makes  a  clean  breast 


246 


AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS, 


247 


The  discrepancies  connected  with  the  role  of  the  soldier 
were  the  chief  cause  of  Ladewig's  theory  of  contaminatio  :  ^  in 
V.  153  he  is  Euboicus  miles,  in  v.  300  he  is  Rhodius.  And 
there  are  other  difficulties  involving  both  the  soldier  and 
Acropolistis.  How  can  Epidicus  plan  (153-155)  that  Stratip- 
pocles  shall  sell  Acropolistis  to  a  soldier  when  she  is  at  the 
time  regarded  by  Periphanes  as  his  daughter  ^  and  had  certainly 
been  manumitted  ?  ^  How  does  the  soldier  know  *  that  she  is 
in  the  house  of  Periphanes  (438,457),  and  if  she  had  been  his 
arnica  (457),  why  did  Stratippocles  (i53ff.)  know  nothing 
about  him?  The  soldier  disappears  absolutely  from  the  play 
without  obtaining  any  satisfaction  (492)  and  the  only  allusion 
to  the  fate  of  Acropolistis  is  the  hint  that  Stratippocles  may 
return  to  her  (653).  It  has  also  been  objected  that  Periphanes, 
for  one  who  has  just  recovered  a  long  lost  daughter,  pays 
Acropolistis  scant  attention.'^ 

The  foregoing  outline  shows  that  the  Epidicus  contains 
many  serious  difficulties,  and  there  has  been  a  general  dispo- 
sition to  regard  it  as  obscure  and  too  brief  for  so  complicated 
a  plot  and  so  many  characters.  Necessary  parts  of  the  pre- 
liminary history  are  omitted  or  referred  to  very  late  in  the  play, 
trickery  is  planned,  at  times  obscurely,  and  then  changed  with- 
out warning  or  dropped  entirely,  plans  for  coming  action  are 


of  her  guile  (591  ff.)  in  a  similar  situation.     He  assumes  a  lacun:i  after 
V. 495  in  which  there  was  an  aside  by  the  girl:  actum  est,  etc. 

*  Op.  cit.,  col.  1089. 

'Goetz  (1878),  pp.  xxi-xxii,  cites  from  a  copy  of  Camerarius's  Basel 
ed.  of  1558  a  note  by  Scaliger  on  v.  417,  'At  quomodo  potuit  earn  emerc 
Apoecides?'  and  on  the  lower  margin,  Pessima  oiKOPOfxia,  Nam  aut 
virgo  est  aut  fidicina  conductitia  quam  adducit  Apoecides.  Si  virgo  est, 
ut  verisimile  est,  non  emetur.  Quomodo  domo  auferatur  ut  conductitia 
illi  supponatur?  Nam  Epidicus  abest.  Si  autem  conductitia,  quomodo 
emi  potuit,  cum  ipsamet  neget  se  eo  die  emi  potuisse  et  quinquennio  ante 
manumissam?  O.  Crusius  discovered  in  a  Paris  manuscript  another 
note  on  vv.  151  ff.  in  which  Scaliger  remarked  the  difficulty  of  getting 
rid  of  Acropolistis  when  Periphanes  was  treating  her  as  his  daughter, 
cf.  Goetz,  ibid.  liv. 

'The  only  direct  statement  that  she  had  been  manumitted  is  gossip 
(507  f.),  but  since  Periph.  believed  her  to  be  his  daughter,  he  must  have 
manumitted  her,  cf.  Scaliger,  preceding  note. 

*  Langrehr,  op.  cit.,  p.  15. 

*'Langrehr,  Plautina,  1886,  p.  17.     But  cf.  Rud.  1204  f. 


H 


^y 


not  carried  out,  and  the  close  of  the  play  fails  to  satisfy  the 
demands  of  the  situation  which  has  been  created. 

The  mass  of  contradictions,  inconsistencies,  and  improbabili- 
ties in  the  plays  of  Plautus  may  be  attributed  to  several  general 
causes:  the  methods  of  Plautus  himself,  who  was  in  many 
matters  very  careless  ;  the  phenomena  of  retractaiio,  which  is 
a  convenient  term  for  all  the  changes  made  by  those  who  pro- 
duced the  plays,  and  especially  by  those  who  revived  them  in 
later  generations  ;  ^  the  interpolations  which  crept  into  the  text 
after  the  plays  ceased  to  be  acted,  i.  e.  chiefly  during  the  period 
of  the  empire ;  -  and  the  accidents  which  befell  the  text  in  the 
process  of  its  transmission.  One  who  studies  the  difficulties 
must  bear  in  mind  all  these  possible  causes  with  their  variations, 
and  it  will  simplify  our  examination  of  the  Epidicus  if  we  can 
exclude  any  of  them.  It  may  be  said  at  once  that  interpolation 
in  the  sense  referred  to  has  had  no  appreciable  effect  upon  the 

'  It  is  probable  that  every  play  underwent  changes  even  at  its  first 
presentation,  after  it  had  left  the  hands  of  Plautus,  and  the  changes 
during  the  poet's  lifetime  may  have  been  considerable,  although  the 
great  revival  seems  to  have  occurred  about  a  generation  after  his  death, 
cf.  Cas.  prolog.  Since  it  is  usually  impossible  to  fix  the  date  of  altera- 
tions due  to  retractatio,  it  is  better  to  include  under  the  term  all 
phenomena  which  can  be  assigned  to  revisers  of  the  plays  while  they 
were  Hving  dramas,  in  distinction  from  those  which  are  attributable  to 
Plautus's  original  version  or  to  the  scholarly  activity  of  later  ages. 

-  In  this  general  classification  I  am  assuming  that  the  Greek  originals 
were  as  free  from  serious  defects  in  art  as  one  can  reasonably  expect 
of  comedy.  Professor  Prescott  has  recently  questioned  the  correct- 
ness of  this  assumption  (CI.  Philol.  XI,  1916,  125  ff.),  reminding  us— 
quite  properly— that  it  is  dangerous  to  assume  that  all  the  writers  of  the 
pea  were  as  careful  as  Menander.  But  in  his  tendency  to  attribute 
clumsy  composition,  etc..  to  the  Greek  poets,  Professor  Prescott  seems  to 
me  to  go  to  the  other  extreme  and  assume  a  degree  of  deficiency  on 
their  part  which  is  just  as  unlikely  as  the  assumption  which  he  combats. 
There  can  be  no  doubt,  it  seems  to  me,  that  Philemon,  Diphilus,  and  the 
rest  resembled  Menander  and  Terence  much  more  closely  than  they 
resembled  Plautus.  I  am  speaking  of  course  in  very  general  terms ; 
the  resemblance  would  be  closer,  for  example,  in  plays  in  which  stories 
of  a  serious  type  were  presented  (the  originals  of  the  Rudens  or  the 
Epid.),  far  less  close  in  those  of  a  farcical  character  (original  of  the 
Most.).  But  the  question  is  too  large  for  discussion  here,  especially 
since  Professor  Prescott  has  promised  additional  evidence  in  support 
of  his  view.  The  present  article  was  complete  in  its  main  outlines 
before  Professor  Prescott's  views  appeared. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS, 


249 


248 


AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


plot  of  the  Epidicus.  Of  the  methods  of  Plautus  himself  one 
which  has  been  a  fruitful  cause  of  difficulties  is  contaminatio, 
the  dovetailing  of  parts  taken  from  two  or  more  originals  into 
one  play.  The  defects  of  the  Epidicus  have  been  attributed,  in 
part  at  least,  to  contaminalio  by  several  scholars,  but  the  play 
lacks  two  of  the  most  striking  features  of  a  contaminated 
play — excessive  length  and  traces  of  two  plots.  The  Epidicus 
has  733  verses ;  no  certainly  contaminated  play  has  much  less 
than  a  thousand  lines,  e.  g.  the  Andria  and  Adelphoe  have  981 
and  997  lines  respectively,  and  each  of  the  plays  which  best 
illustrate  the  process  in  Plautus,  the  Miles  and  the  Poenulus. 
is  nearly  twice  as  long  as  the  Epidicus.  This  point  is  of  course 
not  conclusive  in  itself,  but  when  we  add  the  fact  that  there 
are  not  clear  evidences  of  two  plots  imperfectly  joined  in  llie 
Epidicus,  the  process  of  contaminatio  becomes  a  very  unlikelv 
explanation  of  the  difficulties  of  this  play.  As  Langen  ^  has 
pointed  out,  the  two  plots  which  the  upholders  of  contaminatio 
find  in  this  play  are  so  well  combined  that  it  is  impossible  to 
separate  them.  In  other  words  contaminatio  must  be  demon- 
strated in  Plautus  by  means  of  imperfect  sutures  in  the  plays 
themselves,  since  there  is  no  Donatus,  as  in  the  case  of  Terence, 
to  give  us  information  which  we  could  not  reasonably  infer 
from  the  text  alone. 

The  defects  of  the  Epidicus,  therefore,  if  attributable  to 
Plautus  himself,  must  be  due  to  some  process  different  from 
contaminatio.  But  contaminatio  is  only  one  of  the  many 
methods  employed  by  Plautus  in  dealing  with  his  Greek  orig- 
inals, and  in  the  Epidicus  certain  difficulties  can  be  traced, 
thanks  to  the  results  of  a  brilliant  article  by  Karl  Dziatzko.- 
to  the  freedom  with  which  Plautus  treated  the  Greek  orii^inal 

of  the  play. 

Dziatzko,  approaching  the  Epidicus  from  the  point  of  view 
of  one  who  was  seeking  analogies  for  an  outline  of  Menander's 
Georgos,  argued  convincingly  that  Plautus  has  based  his  play 

'  Plant.  Stud.,  pp.  146-147.  Langen  remarks  that  in  boih  the  Miles  and 
Poen.  the  two  lines  of  trickery  are  directed  towards  the  same  object; 
in  the  Epid.  towards  different  objects,  and  the  first  deception  is  already 
completed  when  the  play  opens. 

=^Der  Inhalt  des  Georgos  von  Menander,  Rhein.  Mus.  LIV  (1899). 
497  ff.,  ibid.  LV  (1900),  104  ff. 


on  a  Greek  model  in  which  the  complications  ended  in  the 
marriage  of  a  brother  to  his  half-sister  (o/xoTrarpta).^  Such 
marriages  although  not  common  were  countenanced  by  Greek 
law  but  were  regarded  by  the  Romans  as  incest.  Therefore 
Plautus  could  not  present  such  a  plot  to  his  Roman  audience 
and  was  forced  to  alter  it  in  such  a  way  that  all  reference  to 
this  kind  of  marriage  was  removed. 

Dziatzko  has  thus  supplied  us  with  a  motive  which  explains 
many  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Epidicus,  and  he  himself 
pointed  out  that  on  this  hypothesis  we  understand  why  the 
preparations  for  Stratippocles's  marriage  come  to  naught.  At 
v.  190  Periphanes  is  planning  to  marry  off  the  youth  just  as 
soon  as  he  returns.  In  the  original  at  this  point  probably  the 
bride's  name,  i.  e.  the  name  of  the  ofioTrarpia  occurred.  The 
wedding  is  referred  to  at  vv.  267,  283,  361— naturally  in  the 
Latin  play  without  mentioning  the  bride's  name.  The  proposed 
sacrifice  of  Periphanes  (316, 415, 500)  is  probably  a  remnant  of 
what  was  in  the  Greek  one  of  the  preparations  for  the  wedding. 
Moreover  Stratippocles  is  represented  as  very  much  in  love  with 
Telestis  (54,  133,  148,  362  if.)— a  fact  which  would  naturally 
precede  a  happy  marriage — but  Plautus  breaks  this  off  abruptly 
and  lamely  (652).  If  Periphanes  had  some  other  girl  in  mind 
for  his  son,  the  plan  ought  to  be  carried  out,  since  the  affair 
with  Acropolistis  was  displeasing  to  him. 

*  For  the  Greek  attitude  towards  such  marriages,  Dziatzko  referred  to 
H.  Blumner.  Gr.  Privatalt.,  1882,  pp.  260  ff.,  and  Schoemann-Lipsius,  Gr. 
Alt.  I  (1897),  375.  Kretschmar  (De  Menandri  reliquiis  nuper  repertis, 
1906,  pp.  16  f.)  supplies  a  number  of  actual  cases :  Nepos,  Cimon,  1, 1-2, 
Habebat  autem  in  matrimonio  sororem  germanam  suam,  nomine  Elpi- 
nicen,  non  magis  amore  quam  more  ductus  :  namque  Atheniensibus  licet 
eodem  patre  natas  uxores  ducere. 

Plutarch,  Themistocles,  32.  Qvyaripa^  5c  nXeiovs  effx^v,  tov  UvrjanrToUfiav 
H(P  iK  Trjs  iviyafirjeeiffrjs  yevofiivriv  'Apx^irroXis  6  d5e\<p6s  ovk  wv  bfiofirirpios 
I717/1CI'. 

Minucius  Felix,  Oct.  31,  3,  ius  est  apud  Persas  misceri  cum  matribus, 
Aegyptiis  et  Atheniensibus  cum  sororibus  legitima  conubia.  (This  is 
not  accurate.  Minucius  is  attacking  pagan  customs.)  Add  Seneca, 
Apocol.  8,  Athenis  dimidium  licet,  Alexandriae  totum.  (Seneca  is  speak- 
ing of  the  supposed  relations  of  Silanus  with  his  sister.)  Probably  the 
sister  marriages  of  the  Ptolemies  were  an  outgrowth  in  part  of  this 
custom,  cf.  e.  g.  Theoc.  XVII,  130. 

For  the  Roman  attitude,  cf.  Marquardt,  Privatleben,  I,  pp.  30  ff. 


250 


AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


251 


This  hypothesis  accounts  also  for  the  difficulties  connected 
with  the  soldier  and  Acropolistis.  In  the  Latin  play  there  is 
a  reference  to  the  sale  of  Acropolistis  to  the  soldier  (153  ff.,  cf. 
300  ff.,  where  Periphanes  is  willing  to  sell  his  son's  arnica, 
although  he  does  not  yet  know  that  he  has  already  bought  her. 
and  437 ff.,  where  he  tries  to  sell  her  to  the  soldier).  If  we 
assume  that  in  the  Greek  play  she  was  actually  sold  or,  if 
manumitted,  turned  over  to  the  soldier,  we  can  understand  the 
facts  as  given  in  the  Epidicus,  i.  e.  Plautus  having  dispensed 
with  the  marriage  of  Stratippocles  to  his  half-sister  wished  to 
make  some  provision,  however  lame,  for  the  youth  and  so 
reserved  Acropolistis  for  him  (653).  This  would  explain  the 
contradictions  noted  above  between  the  plans  concerning 
Acropolistis  and  the  failure  to  carry  them  out.  It  would 
explain  also,  although  this  is  not  in  itself  a  serious  difficulty. 
why  the  soldier  is  left  without  satisfaction. 

The  missing  details  of  the  preliminary  history  were  presented 
according  to  Dziatzko,  in  a  monologue  of  the  Greek  play 
spoken  by  Periphanes  just  before  v.  166.  Plautus  omitted 
this  monologue  because  it  was  concerned  chiefly  with  the  pro- 
posed marriage  of  Stratippocles. 

The  Greek  original  was  not,  on  Dziatzko's  hypothesis,  a 
mere  comedy  of  intrigue  ;  characterization  was  prominent,  and 
Periphanes  was  the  chief  figure,  cf.  the  traces  left  at  166  ff.. 
382  ff.,  526  ff.  He  atoned  for  his  former  sins  by  marrying 
Philippa  and  by  the  marriage  between  his  children.  Plautti> 
has  diverted  attention  from  the  obscurities  and  inconsistencies 
resulting  from  his  treatment  of  this  original  by  inserting  into 
the  midst  of  the  action  the  figure  of  Epidicus,  through  whose 
wit  a  solution  of  the  conflicting  interests  is  effected,  cf.  73^> 

hie  is  homost  qui  libertateni  malitia  invenit  sua— 

a  line  which  in  the  best  manuscript  is  assigned  to  the  poet. 
Remarking  that  the  Epidicus  is  an  excellent  illustration  of  the 
independence  which  Plautus  might  exercise,  if  he  chose,  ni 
the  treatment  of  a  Greek  original  Dziatzko  suggests  that  the 
poet's  liking  for  the  play  (Bacch.  214  f.)  may  have  been  due 
to  his  consciousness  of  this  independence. 

Dziatzko's  theory  is  thus  a  thoroughgoing  effort  to  attribute 
the  difficulties  of  the  play— apart  from  some  minor  accidents 


to  the  text— to  Plautus  himself.^  He  has  certainly  given  the 
right  answer  to  some  of  the  most  important  questions,  but  his 
sweeping  assignment  of  all  the  difficulties  to  one  general  cause 
is  not  adequately  supported  and  can  be  disproved,  I  believe,  in 
important  particulars.  He  has  in  fact  confused  two  questions  : 
(i)  How  far  does  the  Epidicus  represent  its  Greek  original? 
and  (2)  Is  the  Epidicus  in  its  present  form  Plautine?  He  has 
answered  the  first  question  in  the  main  correctly,  but  in 
attempting  to  include  in  it  an  answer  to  the  second  he  has  not 
only  gone  too  far  but  has  failed  to  supply  the  sort  of  evidence 
that  we  need.  Before  we  can  say  with  any  degree  of  confidence 
that  the  Epidicus  in  its  present  form  is  essentially  Plautine  we 
must  determine  the  method  of  Plautus  in  dealing  with  motives 
and  situations  of  the  same  type  as  those  which  appear  in  this 
play.  But  first  let  us  indicate  the  points  which  Dziatzko's 
theory  does  not  explain,  criticizing  at  the  same  time  some 
details  of  his  work. 

The  lack  of  necessary  information  concerning  the  early  life 
of  Periphanes  which  seems  such  a  serious  defect  in  the  exposi- 
tion is  due,  according  to  Dziatzko,  to  the  excision  by  Plautus 
of  a  monologue  of  the  Greek  play  which  was  so  full  of  refer- 
ences to  the  proposed  marriage  between  Stratippocles  and  the 
b^LOTrarpla  that  the  Roman  poet  could  not  use  it.  But  why  could 
he  not  make  use  of  those  facts  which  we  need  to  know — the 
visit  of  Periphanes  to  Epidaurus,  the  birth  of  Telestis  in  Thebes, 
etc.— without  at  the  same  time  using  the  marriage  motif  ?  He 
has  in  fact  given  this  information  late  in  the  play  (54off*-.  554- 
635  ff.)  and  we  must  conclude  that  he  could  have  given  it  in  the 
exposition,^  the  place  where  we  expect  to  find  it  whether  it  is 
repeated  late  in  the  play  or  not.*' 

'Dziatzko  rejects  contaminatio,  reiractatio,  and  the  theory,  urged 
chiefly  by  Leo,  that  the  Epid.  once  had  a  prologue. 

'If  vv.  87 ff.  represent  a  corresponding  passage  at  approximately  the 
same  point  in  the  Greek  play,  Dziatzko's  assumption  that  the  requisite 
Vorgeschichte  occurred  in  a  monologue  of  Periphanes  just  before  vv. 
166  ff.  is  untenable,  for  vv.  87  ff.  imply  that  at  least  part  of  the  infor- 
mation (the  story  of  Telestis's  birth)  has  preceded.  This  part  therefore 
could  not  have  been  first  presented  in  a  monologue  which  followed  vv. 
87  ff.,  see  also  pp.  256  ff. 

'  I  assume  for  the  moment  that  Graeco-Roman  technique  required 
that  such  information  should  be  given  in  the  exposifio,  cf.  Leo.  Plant. 


252 


AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


253 


Moreover  Dziatzko's  theory,  although  it  accounts  for  the 
dropping  of  the  plans  for  Stratippocles's  marriage  (including 
perhaps  the  lame  conclusion  of  his  fate)^  and  for  the  difficul- 
ties connected  with  the  soldier  and  Acropolistis.  does  not 
account  for  the  failure  of  Periphanes  to  marry  Philippa  and 
especially  for  the  very  obscure  and  inconsistent  trickery  of  the 
play.  These  difficulties  still  remain  unless  we  assume  that 
Plautus  wrote  more  briefly,  more  carelessly,  more  obscurely 
in  this  play  than  in  any  other.  The  question  is  not  whether 
the  play  is  sufficiently  intelligible  to  satisfy  the  requirements  of 
an  audience  seeking  mere  amusement,  for  the  play  could  be 
acted  and  probably  was  once  acted  in  essentially  its  present 
form,  but  whether  its  difficulties  are  such  as  Plautus  himself 
would  have  permitted  in  one  of  his  compositions.  The  stand- 
ard to  be  applied  is  not  that  of  the  via  nor,  except  indirectly,  that 
of  an  audience  or  reader— even  a  Roman  audience  or  reader— 
but  the  standard  of  Plautus  himself.  He  learned  his  literary 
art  chiefly  from  the  via  and  he  had  to  please  a  certain  rude  type 
of  audience,  but  we  must  determine  what  his  actual  methods 
were  from  a  study  of  all  his  own  plays.  If  the  Epidicus  were 
unique  in  its  content  and  motives,  it  would  be  difficult  to  apply 
this  standard,  but  it  is  not  unique.  It  has  a  number  of  typical 
features:  the  familiar  love  aflfair  between  a  wild  young  man 
and  a  slave  girl  (here  two  girls),  the  father  who  has  sinned  in 
his  youth  and  has  an  illegitimate  daughter,  the  slave  who  cheats 
his  old  master  out  of  money  in  order  to  aid  the  love  of  his 
young  master,  a  leno,  a  soldier,  and  finally  the  familiar  amyioj- 
/)i(7t9  (here  appearing  in  a  double  form). 

For  light  upon  the  defects  of  the  exposition  one  turns  natu- 
rally to  other  plays  which  develop  to  an  avayv^pKn^ :  Captivi, 


l^'orsch.'.  199  (on  the  Epid.),  and  in  general  Chapp.  III-IV;  Legrand, 
Daos.  490  ff.     For  the  detailed  support  of  this  point  so  far  as  Plautus 

is  concerned  see  pp.  254  ff. 

'  The  futures  of  young  men  are  summarily  disposed  of  without  mar- 
riage in  the  Most.  (1164).  Adel.997,  cf.  Phorm.  1036-1046,  but  we  expect 
some  authoritative  person  and  not  a  slave  to  say  the  final  words.  Simi- 
larly we  should  not  find  difficulty  in  the  practical  neglect  of  Acropolistis 
if  she  were  not  so  intimately  connected  with  Periphanes.  Philematium 
in  the  Most,  is  absolutely  dropped  and  Anterastylis  in  the  Poen.,  though 
recognized  as  freeborn,  is  left  without  a  husband  or  a  lover.  But 
neither  of  these  ladies  plays  quite  the  same  role  as  Acropolistis  and  we 
miss  at  least  some  final  words  from  Periphanes  about  her. 


Gasina,  Cistellaria,  Curculio,  Menaechmi.  Poenulus,  Rudens, 
and  Vidularia.  Two  of  these,  Cistellaria  and  Vidularia,  on 
account  of  their  fragmentary  condition  are  of  little  service,^ 
but  an  examination  of  the  rest  yields  important  results. 

Leo  has  emphasized  the  fact  that  with  two  exceptions  all 
these  plays  are  provided  with  an  expository  prologue  spoken 
by  somebody  not  connected  with  the  action,  i.  e.  since  there  is 
always  a  previous  history,  Plautus  and  probably  his  originals 
think  it  necessary  to  place  the  situation  clearly  before  the 
audience.  Thus  in  six  cases  out  of  eight  the  chief  means 
employed  by  Plautus  is  the  expository  prologue.  Leo  indeed 
pushes  this  point  to  its  extreme  logical  conclusion  and  infers 
that  the  Curculio  and  the  Epidicus,  the  two  exceptions,  once 
had  prologues.-  He  admits  that  Terence  uses  no  expository 
prologue  for  plays  of  this  type  and  that  the  Curculio  needs 
none,  and  he  states  the  possibility  that  in  these  two  plays 
Plautus  may  have  wished  the  arayroj/otons  to  come  as  a  surprise. 
He  prefers  to  assume  the  loss  of  prologues  because  of  two 
important  facts :  the  serious  obscurities  of  the  Epidicus  in  its 
present  form,  and  the  failure,  in  the  Curculio,  to  mention 
Epidaurus  as  the  scene  of  the  play  until  v.  341. 

Leo's  theory  must  be  admitted  to  be  possible,  but  it  is  far 
from  probable  even  in  the  case  of  the  Curculio  and  still  less 
probable  for  the  Epidicus.  The  Curculio  may  be  considered, 
as  Leo  saw.  an  anticipation  of  the  Terentian  method ;  ^  the 
addition  of  a  prologue  would  simply  make  clearer  a  play  that 
is  already  clear.  But  no  prologue  can  easily  be  conceived 
which  would  remove  all  the  obscurities  of  the  Epidicus.  I 
shall  return  to  the  Curculio  below.  Meanwhile  if  we  compare 
the  exposition  of  the  Epidicus  with  the  expository  portions, 
both  prologue  and  early  scenes,  of  the  other  plays  of  this  group, 

'  It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  both  these  plays  have  prologues, 
and  that  the  prologue  of  the  Cist.  (120-148, 149-202)  provides  a  thorough 
exposition,  although  we  cannot  follow  the  development  within  the  play. 
Selenium,  the  heroine,  is  much  like  Telestis :  she  \s  pudica  (100),  as  all 
heroines  of  this  type  must  be  except  so  far  as  the  lover  is  concerned, 
cf.  Poen.,  Rud.,  Aul.,  Andr. ;  she  is  'recognized',  but  not  by  a  brother. 

'So  Legrand,  Daos,  490 ff.,  504. 

'The  play  would  be  an  exception,  on  this  hypothesis,  to  Leo's  rule  that 
when  the  scene  is  not  Athens,  the  fact  must  be  mentioned  in  a  pro- 
k>gue,  Plant.  Forsch.'^  199  f. 
17 


254 


AMERICA!^  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


255 


the  Epidicus  proves  to  be  obscure  and  therefore  abnormal. 
A  few  words  will  suffice  to  show  how  Plautus  usually  deals  with 
the  kind  of  information  which  is  lacking  in  the  exposition  of 
the  Epidicus— the  early  history  of  heroines  like  Telestis. 

In  the  Cistellaria  the  story  of  Selenium's  birth,  the  same 
story  as  that  of  the  birth  of  Telestis,  is  told  in  the  leno's  speech 
(123-148)  and  in  that  of  Auxilium  (156-196)-'  The  same  is 
true  of  Casina,  the  heroine  of  the  Casina,  cf .  prolog.  39-46, 
79-81.  The  avayviopKTts  of  this  play  has  been  reduced  to  the 
lowest  terms  ( ioi3-ioi4),2  but  the  omission  of  details  causes  no 
obscurities.  In  the  Poenulus  the  whole  story  of  Anterastyiis 
and  Adelphasium,  the  two  girls  who  are  about  to  become 
meretrices,  is  told  in  the  prologue  vv.  59-122 ;  cf .  Rudens,  prolog. 
35  ff.,  for  the  early  history  of  Palaestra. 

Among  the  plays  containing  recognition  scenes,  therefore, 
the  Curculio  affords  the  best  opportunity  for  comparison  with 
the  Epidicus,  since  both  plays  lack  prologues.  There  is  in  the 
Curculio  no  preparation  for  the  avayvil>pi<n^,  although  the  expo- 
sition is  clear  in  all  other  respects.  If  then  we  were  to  assume, 
against  Leo,  that  this  play  never  had  a  prologue,  we  should 
have,  in  the  failure  to  prepare  for  the  Avayvwpiat^,  the  best 
analogy  to  the  Epidicus.  Nevertheless  I  cannot  believe  that 
the  analogy  would  be  cogent.  The  early  history  of  Planesium 
is  not  an  essential  feature  of  the  first  532  lines  of  the  play, 
in  which  her  soldier  brother  does  not  appear.  In  this  part 
of  the  play  the  interest  centers  in  Curculio  and  his  wiles,  and 
Curculio  knows  nothing  about  the  secret  of  Planesium's  birlh. 
In  the  Epidicus  on  the  other  hand  the  trickster  Epidicus  is  not 
only  the  one  person  who  knows  all  those  who  take  part  in  the 
dvayvtuptais,  but  he  has  made  use  of  his  knowledge  to  deceive 
his  old  master  into  the  purchase  of  a  girl  whom  he  believes, 
because  of  this  knowledge,  to  be  his  daughter  (87  ff.,  598  ff.)- 
The  trickster  and  his  tricks,  therefore,  are  in  this  play  inextri- 
cably connected  with  the  story  of  those  who  take  part  in  the 

Mf  vv.  125,  130-132  were  added  by  rctractatores  in  order  that  Aux- 
ilium's  speech  might  he  omitted  (Leo,  Lindsay) .  the  resultant  shortening 
would  illustrate  the  process  which  may  have  caused  many  of  the  obscur- 
ities in  the   Epidicus— a  willingness  to  dispense  with  all  but  the  bare 

psspntials 
=  Cf.  Leo.  Plant.  Forsch.%  207  f..  R^»m.  Litt.,  127  f..  Cantica,  104-106. 


ai/ayvw/Bidw.  Moreover  Periphanes  in  the  early  part  of  the  play 
knows  where  Philippa  is  and  is  planning  to  marry  her  (i66ff.), 
so  that  the  possibility  of  an  intention  on  the  part  of  Plautus 
to  present  a  surprise  dvayrwpto-t?,  like  that  in  the  Curculio,  is 
precluded.  Among  the  plays  having  avayvuipun^  the  Epidicus 
is  unique  in  this  employment  of  the  trickster's  knowledge  of 
the  heroine's  story  as  a  basis  for  deception.  The  closest 
resemblance  to  this  peculiarity  occurs  in  the  Poenulus  {ySy  ff.), 
where  Syncerastus,  the  slave  of  the  leno,  informs  Milphio,  the 
trickster,  that  the  two  supposed  meretrices  are  in  reality  free- 
born  girls  (894 ff.)  and  suggests  that  Agorastocles,  the  lover, 
can  make  use  of  this  knowledge  to  ruin  the  leno.  Milphio 
accepts  the  suggestion  and  plans  that  Hanno  shall  personate 
the  father  of  the  girls,  but  it  is  unnecessary  to  complete  the 
trick  since  Hanno  proves  in  fact  to  be  their  father — unnecessary 
in  any  event  since  the  leno  is  already  in  the  power  of  Agoras- 
tocles.^    Moreover  the  Poenulus  has  a  prologue. 

But  although  the  Epidicus  is  unique  in  its  inextricable  com- 
bination of  trickery  with  the  preliminary  history  when  that 
history  concerns  the  heroine's  birth,  there  are  several  plays  in 
which  the  preliminary  history,  of  a  different  type  indeed, 
involves  trickery.  These  plays  resemble  the  Epidicus  only  in 
the  point  that  deception  of  some  kind  has  been  accomplished 
before  the  play  opens.  It  is  possible  therefore  to  determine 
Plautus's  treatment  of  this  element. 

At  the  opening  of  the  Amphitruo  Jupiter  and  Mercury  have 
assumed  respectively  the  likenesses  of  Amphitruo  and  Sosia. 
Minute  information  on  this  point  is  given  in  the  prologue,  vv. 
1 1 5-147,  even  to  distinctive  ornaments  which  shall  be  visible  to 
the  spectators  only  (142-145),  so  that  they  may  not  confuse 
the  gods  with  the  mortals !  The  lengthening  of  the  night  and 
the  stealing  of  King  Pterela's  bowl,  both  of  which  are  promi- 

'  Milphio  dififers  from  Epidicus  in  that  he  avails  himself  of  infor- 
mation given  by  somebody  else,  but  it  is  the  same  kind  of  information. 
The  Truculentus  also  resembles  the  Epid.  in  one  important  point :  the 
assumption  until  very  late  in  the  play  (825)  of  a  fact  usually  given  in  a 
prologue — that  Diniarchus  has  wronged  the  daughter  of  Callicles.  This 
omission  produces  obscurity  at  v.  771,  etc.  But  the  resemblance  is  due 
to  accident  for  it  is  practically  certain  that  the  needed  information  has 
fallen  out  of  the  prologue,  cf.  the  lacuna  after  v.  17.  Sec  Leo,  Plant. 
Forsch.',  p.  206. 


256  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY, 

nent  features  of  the  deception,  are  also  carefully  made  known 
to  the  audience  (prolog.  113  f.  138  f-)-  Moreover  there  are 
many  resumptive  references  to  all  these  features  withm  the 
body  of  the  play  in  order  that  the  audience  may  by  no  possibility 
become  confused,  cf.  265-269  (Mercury  has  assumed  the  like- 
ness of  Sosia),470  (Mercury  will  continue  his  deception),  497 
(Mercury  announces  the  entrance  of  the  spurious  Amphitruo 
in  a  scene  which  is  in  fact  a  sort  of  second  prologue),  277-290 
(the  night  is  longer  than  usual),  etc. 

Similarly  in  the  Captivi,  Miles,  Rudens,  and  Menaechmi  parts 
of  the  deception  have  been  accomplished  or  bases  for  deception 
exist  before  the  play  opens,  and  in  every  case  the  situation  is 
carefully  explained  both  in  the  prologue  and  within  the  body 
of  the  play.^     The  evidence  is,  therefore,  that  when  a  deception 
has  been  carried  out  before  the  play  opens,  Plautus  avails 
himself  of  a  prologue  and  even  repeats  essential  points  within 
the  play  proper.     The  Epidicus  is  in  fact  the  only  play  of 
Plautus  (lacking  a  prologue)  in  which  such  a  deception  is 
mentioned  without    elucidation.^^     Thus    everything   that  we 
know  about  the  manner  of  Plautus  precludes  the  view  that  the 
meager  reference  at  v.  87  f •  to  a  trick  already  accomplished 
can  be  taken  as  an  anticipation  of  the  Terentian  technique . 
If  Plautus  had  wished  for  once  to  abandon  his  usual  practice 
and  dispense  with  a  prologue,  he  would  not  have  been  satisfied 
with  so  brief  a  reference  as  that  in  the  Epidicus.     The  con- 
clusion is  inevitable  that  Plautus  himself  included  in  the  play 
an  adequate  exposition  of  this  trick  and  that  vv.  87-88  are  a 
resumptive  reference'  to  that  exposition,  i.  e.  that  the  real 

>  Cf.  Capt..  prolog.  35  ff-  ("lan  and  master  have  exchanged  clothes  and 
names),  cf.  223  ff..  etc.    Miles,  prolog.  138  if^  ^f  fT 'TsfeS^^^^ 
constructed),  cf.  181  f.,  187  f.  etc.     At  145  «.  the  fooling  o    See ledru 
announced  before  any  reason  for  it  has  arisen  !     Rud.,  pro  og.  43  ff • 
leno  has  tried  to  give  Plesidippus  the  slip) .    Menaech.,  prolog,  i/  ff- (  l  e 
resemblance  of  the  twins  which  is  the  basis  of  the  comphcations)      Las 
prolog.  50  If.  (plans  of  the  opposing  forces  for  winning  Casina).     ine 
Casina  is  the  play  concerning  whose  revival  the  best  evidence  ex   U 
1  f  the  revivalists  altered  the  play,  they  have  certainly  avoided  obscuntie^. 

Mn  the  Phormio  of  Terence  the  trick  by  which  the  marriage  0 
Antipho  is  effected  has  been  accomplished  before  the  play  opens  bu 
Terence,  as  is  well  known,  relies  on  his  expositio  to  present  all  parts 
the  situation,  cf.  for  this  case  vv.  124-136. 

•Cf.  the  references  n.  i  (above).    The  Miles  offers  the  best  an    og^^ 
Everything  necessary  to  understand  the  secret  passageway  and  its 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


257 


exposition  once  preceded  the  remnant  now  existing.  Analogy 
indicates  that  this  exposition  was  contained  in  a  prologue  and 
this  inference  is  supported  by  the  fact  that  there  is  no  suitable 
place  for  it  within  the  first  scene  unless  we  assume  that  it  was 
originally  included  in  the  monologue  of  Epidicus  (81  fif.)  and 
that  vv.  87-88  are  a  later  substitution  or  a '  cut '  by  retractatores, 
and  so  the  only  remnant  of  the  Plautine  version. 

But  if  Dziatzko's  hypothesis  and  the  loss  of  a  prologue  or 
some  other  expository  passage  account  for  a  number  of  the 
difficulties,  several  still  remain  to  be  explained,  see  p.  251  f. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  f  a,ilure  to  state  that  Periphanes  carried 
out  his  intention  of  marrying  Philippa.  This  omission  causes 
no  obscurity,  and  when  a  plot  has  developed  in  such  a  way  as 
to  make  a  certain  result  a  foregone  conclusion,  the  result  itself 
is  often  stated  in  summary  fashion.^  The  development  of  the 
Epidicus  brings  both  Philippa  and  her  daughter  into  the  house 
of  Periphanes  (601,  657),  and  we  know  the  old  man's  intention 
( 168-172).  A  few  words  would  have  sufficed  to  state  the  result, 
and  it  is  not  in  accordance  with  ancient  technique  to  omit  these 
few  words.  It  is  impossible  to  say  definitely  whether  Plautus 
himself  neglected  to  add  such  a  passage  or  whether  it  has  been 
omitted  by  those  who  cut  the  play  in  later  times,  but  the 
second  hypothesis  is  much  more  probable  since  there  is  no 
analogy  for  such  an  omission  in  the  case  of  a  major  character.*^ 

The  obscurities  connected  with  the  trickery  constitute  one  of 
the  most  serious  difficulties  of  the  play.  Excluding  the  first 
trick,  which  has  already  been  discussed,  the  object  and  methods 
of  the  deception  within  the  play  are  quite  normal  and  it  is 
possible  to  compare  the  Epidicus  in  these  respects  with  several 
other  plays.  The  trickster  plans  and  carries  out  a  scheme  by 
which  he  secures  money  from  his  old  master  to  aid  his  young 


is  carefully  made  known  (prolog,  vv.  136-153),  so  that  later  brief 
references  are  enough,  e.  g.  res  palamst  (173),  the  gestures  used  with 
hicine  (181) ,  transire  hue  (182) ,  cf .  187  f .,  195, 199, 227,  etc.  The  situations 
in  the  Amph.  and  the  Capt.  are  so  confusing  and  pervade  the  action  so 
thoroughly  that  the  resumptive  references  are  more  complete  than 
Epid.  87  f. 

'  Cf.  Aul.  793,  Cas.  1012-1014,  Cure.  728,  Poen.  1278,  etc. 

'There  is  no  case  quite  like  that  of  Periphanes — a  senex  contemplat- 
ing marriage  with  a  woman  whom  he  has  wronged  years  before  although 
such  a  marriage  is  presupposed  in  the  Cist,  (prolog.  177  fF.). 


258 


AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


master's  love  affair.  This  type  of  deception  is  common  enough. 
cf.  Bacchides,  Persa,  Pseudolus,  Phormio,  etc.  The  methods 
also  are  common  enough :  lying  and  thieving— these  go  with- 
out saying— hut  especially  the  use  of  one  person  to  represent 
another,  the  method  of  masquerading  or  personation.  By 
lying  Epidicus  secures  the  money  for  the  purchase,  as  Peri- 
phanes  thinks,  of  the  son's  arnica  whom  the  old  man  intends 
to  sell  out  of  the  son's  reach.  The  slave  must  of  course  produce 
a  girl  to  personate  this  supposed  amica.  For  this  purpose  he 
secures  the  hired  fidicina.  In  all  this  we  do  not  demand  that 
the  ohject  shall  be  a  permanent  or  a  worthy  one  nor  even  that 
the  methods  shall  be  very  plausible.  We  are  dealing  with 
comedy,  and  we  must  not  apply  a  high  standard  of  probability 
to  a  form  of  art  whose  primary  object  was  after  all  to  raise  a 
laugh.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  object  of  the  deception  in  the 
Epidicus  is  wholly  ephemeral,  as  is  usual,  and  the  old  men  are 
gullible  enough.  But  we  have  a  right  to  demand  that  the  trick- 
as  a  trick  should  be  planned  and  executed  clearly,  else  it  fails 
in  large  measure  to  attain  its  humble  object.  If  an  audience 
does  not  fully  understand  a  trick,  the  resultant  laughter  is  not 
unmixed  with  bewilderment.  Perspicuity,  not  probability,  is 
th^  criterion.  Did  Plautus  understand  this  ?  The  only  way  to 
ascertain  his  convictions,  as  I  have  urged  before,  is  to  examine 

the  plays.^ 

The  situation  in  the  Bacchides  closely  resembles  that  in  the 
Epidicus.  Mnesilochus,  like  Stratippocles,  returns  from  abroad 
during  the  course  of  the  play  and  is  assisted  by  his  slave 
Chrysalus  to  secure  money  for  the  purchase  of  his  amica.  Bac- 
chis.  Moreover  the  money  is  secured  from  the  young  man's 
father  by  lying  and  by  convincing  him  that  the  girl  is  the  wife 
of  a  soldier,  i.  e.  that  she  is  what  she  is  not,  cf.  the  fidicina  in 
the  Epidicus.  In  fact  the  senex  is  fooled  twice,  for  the  son 
through  mistaken  jealousy  of  his  friend  Pistoclerus  returns  to 
his  father  the  money  which  Chrysalus's  first  effort,  mere  lying, 
has  placed  at  his  disposal.  The  second  trick  is  then  planned 
and  carried  out  before  the  eyes  of  the  audience,  aided  of  course 
by  the  opportune  arrival  of  the  soldier  (842).     The  gullible 

*  All  the  trickery  in  Plautus  has  a  bearing  of  course,  but  an  exami- 
nation of  the  most  closely  analogous  plays  will  suffice  for  my  present 
purpose. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


259 


old  man  gives  up  200  Philips  to  buy  off  the  soldier  (903)  and 
another  200  which  he  is  led  to  believe  that  his  son  has  promised 
Bacchis  ( 1059  ff.)  before  she  leaves  him.  Thus  there  is  a  large 
amount  of  deception  in  the  Bacchides  but  there  is  not  one 

serious  obscurity.^ 

In  the  Persa  the  money  with  which  Toxilus  buys  the  freedom 
of  his  mistress  from  Dordalus,  the  leno,  is  obtained  by  simple 
theft.  But  the  stolen  money  must  be  restored  (324-327),  and 
so  Toxilus  tells  Dordalus  that  his  master  has  just  sent  home 
a  beautiful  Persian  captive  and  that  she  is  for  sale.  Lucris,. 
the  daughter  of  Saturio,  a  parasite,  is  induced  to  play  the  role 
of  the  captive  while  Sagaristio,  a  friend  of  Toxilus,  acts  that 
of  an  attendant  Persian  selling  agent.  Dordalus  falls  into  the 
trap  and  after  he  has  paid  over  the  purchase  money,  Saturio 
appears  and  hales  him  into  court  where  of  course  the  sale  of 
a  free  girl  is  declared  null  and  void.  But  since  Dordalus  has 
made  the  purchase  suo  periclo  (524,  715),  and  since  the  Persian 
agent  has  departed  to  his  ship  (709  f.),  he  makes  no  attempt 
to  recover  his  money. 

The  chief  method  of  deception  is  here  the  same  as  in  the 
Epidicus — personation ;  but  it  is  planned  and  carried  out  w' ith 
perfect  clearness.^     The  audience  is  even  told  just  how  Saga- 

'  I  cannot  agree  with  Leo  (Rom.  Litt.,  119  f.)  that  the  Bacch.  is  a  con- 
taminated play.  There  are  really  only  two  deceptions :  (i)  the  lie  about 
the  pirate  ship,  and  (2)  the  deception  by  which  Nicobulus  is  convinced 
that  Bacchis  is  the  soldier's  wife.  The  second  deception  is  used  twice, 
but  the  deception  itself  is  one  and  indivisible.  The  only  difficulty  that 
affects  the  trickery  in  the  slightest  degree  is  the  one  noted  by  Langen 
at  V.  347 :  that  Chrysalus  informs  Nicobulus  where  Mnesilochus  is, 
although  the  success  of  the  first  trick  depends  upon  keeping  father  and 
son  apart  until  Chrysalus  can  forewarn  the  son  (366  f.).  But,  omitting 
possible  explanations,  the  difficulty  is  not  serious,  for  the  audience  learns 
almost  immediately  (390  ff.)  that  Chrysalus  has  met  the  youth  and  put 
him  on  his  guard. 

'Some  scholars  have  made  a  difficuUy  of  the  fact  that  Sagaristio 
attends  the  final  banquet  instead  of  going  to  Eretria  (259).  But  he  did 
not  have  to  be  in  Eretria  at  once  (cf.  260  die  septumei) ,  even  if  vv.  262  ff. 
do  not  explicitly  state  that  he  will  not  go  at  all. 

The  absence  of  Saturio  and  Lucris  from  the  banquet  has  been 
attributed  by  Professor  Prescott,  with  great  probability,  to  the  fact 
that  being  freeborn  they  cannot  take  part  in  such  a  slave  celebration 
(CI.  Phil.  XI,  128  f.).  Besides  they  were  forced  into  the  trick  by  the 
power  which  Toxilus  possessed  over  Saturio  (140  ff.)  and  they  require 


26o 


AMERICAN-  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


2bt 


ristio,  the  pseudo-Persian,  instead  of  going  to  his  ship,  is  to 
sneak  per  angiportum ...  per  hortum  (678  f.)  into  the  house  of 
Toxilus's  master,  and  the  girl  is  coached  upon  the  stage,  first 
in  a  scene  which  is  practically  a  rehearsal  (HI,  i)  and  then  at 
the  crucial  moment  by  asides  from  Toxilus  and  Sagaristio 
(IV,  4).     There  is  a  wealth  of  hints  to  the  audience. 

In  the  Pseudolus  also  the  wiles  of  a  slave  provide  the  chief 
interest  and  the  object  is  the  same  as  in  the  Epidicus :  to 
obtain  money  for  the  young  master's  love  affair.  Pseudolus 
guarantees  to  trick  Ballio,  the  leno,  out  of  the  girl.  As  in  the 
Epidicus  a  soldier  is  anxious  to  secure  the  same  girl,  and  there 
is  a  second  senex  and  a  second  adulescens.  The  first  part  of 
the  play  contains  an  immense  amount  of  bragging  threats  and 
aimless  assertion  of  resourcefulness  on  the  part  of  the  slave 
(i20ff.,  232ff.,  382ff.),but  he  himself  characterizes  them  at 
their  true  value  (394  flf.)  and  admits  that  he  has  not  gutta  certi 
consili.  His  dilemma  is  in  fact  worse  than  that  of  Epidicus, 
for  his  old  master  Simo  has  an  inkling  of  the  situation  (408) 
and  soon  becomes  fully  enlightened  (481  fY.).  It  is  not  until 
the  entrance  of  Harpax.  the  soldier's  messenger,  at  v.  595,  that 
Pseudolus  has  any  real  basis  for  his  wiles,  and  at  once  there 
is  a  clear  statement  that  new  plans  are  necessary  and  all 
previous  ones  abandoned  (601-603). 

The  only  important  feature  of  the  first  594  lines,  so  far  as  the 
real  trickery  is  concerned,  is  the  assurance  given  by  Pseudolus 
to  Simo  that  he  will  get  the  necessary  money  from  Simo  him- 
self (507-518)  and  will  cheat  Ballio  out  of  the  girl  (524-530). 
and  the  promise  of  Simo  to  supply  the  money  if  Pseudolus 
accomplishes  both  feats,  i.  e.  the  senex  practically  bets  the  slave 
that  he  cannot  get  the  money  from  him  or  cheat  the  leno.  1  he 
turn  given  to  Pseudolus's  plans  (if  he  had  any !)  by  the  arrival 
of  Harpax  renders  it  unnecessary  to  carry  out  his  intention 
of  securing  the  money  from  Simo,  and  in  the  end  Simo  pays 
his  bet  because  the  other  part  of  Pseudolus's  task— the  cheat- 
ing of  Ballio— has  been  so  well  done  (1213, 1238,  1307  f-)-'    ^^'^ 


no  reward  other  than  the  continuance  of  his  favor.  Like  many  otlier 
instruments  of  trickery  in  Plautus  they  disappear  when  their  roles  are 
played,  cf.  Simia  (Pseud.),  the  sycophanta  (Tri.).etc.,  cf.  Prescott.  ibid. 
>Leo  finds  a  contradiction  between  Pseudolus's  promise  (i)  to  get  tu 
money  from  Simo  and  to  outwit  the  leno,  and  (2)  Simo's  offer  ot  the 


%' 


r 


real  plan  required  only  five  minae,  the  amount  brought  by 
Harpax  to  complete  the  payment  for  the  soldier,  and  this  sum 
is  furnished  by  Charinus  (734)  with  the  assurance  from 
Pseudolus  that  when  Simo  pays  his  bet,  Pseudolus  will  pay 
back  the  loan.  So  when  Pseudolus  receives  the  20  minae  which 
he  has  won  (1241),  he  has  more  than  he  needs  to  repay 
Charinus  and  is  able  to  promise  the  return  of  dimidium  aut 
plus  to  Simo  (1328). 

The  real  trickery  therefore  begins  with  the  arrival  of  Harpax 
(595)  and  the  first  step  is  taken  when  Pseudolus,  by  claiming 
to  be  Ballio's  servant,  secures  from  Harpax  the  soldier's  letter 
to  Ballio.  The  method  by  which  Ballio  is  outwitted  is  again, 
as  in  the  Persa  and  the  Epidicus,  personation.  A  pseudo- 
Harpax  is  dressed  up  and  sent  to  Ballio  with  the  letter  and  five 
minae,  and  to  him  Ballio  surrenders  the  girl.  The  entire 
transaction  is  clearly  planned  even  to  the  dress  which  the  false 
messenger  is  to  wear  (725-755),  and  as  clearly  executed  (956- 
1051).  The  long  scene  between  Ballio,  Simo,  and  the  real 
Harpax  (i  103-1237)  merely  clinches  the  result.  We  may 
remark  in  passing  that  although  the  soldier  recovers  his  money 
(1230)  he  loses  the  girl,  which  is  the  same  fate  that  the  military 
gentlemen  sufifer  in  the  Epidicus,  Bacchides,  and  Curculio. 

The  illustrations  given  indicate  how  clearly  Plautus  presents 
many  of  the  same  types  of  deception  which  occur  in  the  Epi- 
dicus. There  is  however  one  important  feature  which  cannot 
be  paralleled  in  the  three  plays  just  considered.  It  has  been 
noted  (pp.  244  f[.)  that  in  accordance  with  the  plans  of  Epidicus 
the  hoodwinking  of  the  leno  (364-370)  and  of  Apoecides — so 
far  as  the  false  purchase  of  the  fidicina  is  concerned — take 
place  off  the  stage,  and  we  have  seen  that  the  references  to  the 
actions  do  not  agree  with  the  plans.  How  does  Plautus  deal 
with  this  type  of  situation  elsewhere?  Light  is  thrown  on 
this  question  by  the  Asinaria  and  the  Captivi. 


money  if  Pseudolus  accomphshes  both  tasks  by  evening  (Gott.  gelehrt. 
Nachr.,  1903,250).  But  surely,  since  Pseudolus  knows  that  money  will 
be  necessary  in  order  to  fool  the  leno,  vv.  535-537  moan.  'Will  you  give 
me  of  your  own  free  will '  whatever  money  I  may  have  to  filch  from  you 
in  order  to  cheat  the  leno?  For  the  cheating  of  the  leno  is  to  precede 
^cf.  524).  Pseudolus  did  not.  of  course,  cheat  Simo  out  of  any  money 
tor  the  very  good  reason  that  the  arrival  of  Harpax  suggested  an  easier 
method. 


202 


AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


THE  PLOT  OF  THE  EPIDICUS. 


263 


In  the  Asinaria  old  Demaenetus  is  hand  and  glove  with  the 
two  slaves,  Libanus  and  Leonida,  in  cheating  the  Mercator  out 
of  the  money  necessary  for  young  Argyrippus's  love  affair. 
The  mercator  is  successfully  convinced  that  the  masquerading 
Leonida  is  the  steward  Saurea  (II,  4).  but  he  is  so  cautious 
that  he  refuses  to  pay  over  the  money  except  in  the  presence 
of  Demaenetus.  Opportunely  (  !  )  Demaenetus  is  in  the  forum 
at  the  banker's  ( 1 16,  126),  and  the  final  acts  of  the  deception- 
the  identification  of  Leonida  as  Saurea  and  the  payment  to 
him  of  the  money— take  place  off  the  stage.  These  acts  are 
clearly  stated  by  Libanus  (580-583)  in  perfect  harmony  with 
the  other  parts  of  the  intrigue. 

In  the  Captivi.  Hegio  is  induced  to  believe  that  Philocrates 
is  the  slave  Tyndarus,  and  he  releases  the  pseudo-slave  in  the 
hope  of  recovering  his  own  son.  As  in  the  Asinaria,  the 
deception  of  the  old  man  is  presented  on  the  stage,  but  the 
results— the  release  and  sending  away  of  Philocrates— occur 
off  the  stage  and  are  clearly  stated  by  Hegio  (III,  2).' 

It  is  in  fact  the  general  practice  of  Plautus  to  be  clear  in  his 
references  to  events  that  occur  off  the  stage,  cf .  such  narratives 
as  Bromia's  account  of  the  birth  of  Hercules  (Amph.  V,  i), 
Curculio\s  tale  of  his  deception  of  the  soldier  (Cure.  329-363), 
Strobilus's  account  of  his  theft  of  Euclio's  money-pot  (Aul. 
IV,  8),  etc.  Often  indeed  the  poet  goes  so  far  as  to  present 
on  the  stage  actions  or  parts  of  actions  which  have  been 
announced  to  occur  off  the  stage,  e.  g.  Mil.  594  f-.  the  senatus 
of  the  conspirators  will  take  place  intus,  but  (597  ff.)  they  conie 
out  and  make  their  plan.  Old  Periplecomenus  (Mil.  793  A") 
is  to  instruct  the  pseudo-wife  and  maid  off  the  stage,  but  after 
he  has  brought  them  on.  they  are  instructed  all  over  agani 
(874  ff.)  !  Nequid  peccetis  paveo,  says  Master  Palaestrio,  and 
this  might  be  taken  as  the  poet's  motto  in  dealing  with  the 
spectators !  Indeed  the  rights  of  the  spectators  in  this  matter 
are  clearly  recognized  in  the  Poenulus.  The  advocati  have  been 
coached  in  their  part  off  the  stage  and  they  are  indignant  that 

'  In  the  Persa  the  conviction  of  Dordalus  is  to  occur  off  the  stage 
before  the  praetor,  cf.  741-752.  and  no  statement  is  made  later  that  it 
actually  occurred.  But  the  money  (the  essential  thing)  has  already  been 
secured  and  Dordalus,  before  his  departure,  laments  its  loss  (742).  so 
that  his  final  conviction  can  safely  be  left  to  inference. 


t! 


Agorastocles  should  wish  them  to  rehearse,^  but  they  recognize 
the  rights  of  the  spectators  (550 ff.)  : 

Omnia  istaec  scimus  iam  nos,  si  hi  spectatores  sciant. 
Horunc  hie  nunc  causa  haec  agitur  spectatorum  fabula : 
Hos  te  satius  est  docere  ut,  quando  agas,  quid  agas  sciant. 

The  last  line  states  very  well  the  attitude  of  Plautus  himself.^ 
It  is  necessary  to  add  a  few  words  concerning  the  contami- 
nated plays,  for  it  may  be  argued  that  if  Plautus  allowed  such 
glaring  inconsistencies  as  we  have  in  the  Miles  and  the  Poenu- 
lus, we  need  not  worry  about  the  difficulties  of  the  Epidicus. 
The  answer  to  this  objection  is  that  although  these  plays  con- 
tain striking  inconsistencies,  yet  they  are  not,  like  the  Epidicus, 
obscure.  I  must  content  myself  with  one  or  two  illustrations. 
In  the  Miles  (596)  the  audience  is  led  to  expect  a  plan  to 
be  made  on  the  stage.  Such  a  plan  is  actually  made  (765  ff.) 
and  is  later  carried  out.  At  vv.  612-615  a  plan  is  to  be 
adopted  inside  the  house,  but  no  word  of  its  nature  is  told, 
and  after  the  long  autobiography  of  Periplecomenus  the  real 
plan  is  developed.  All  this  is  clumsy,  but  not  obscure.  Simi- 
larly in  the  Epidicus,  if  the  plan  to  deceive  the  leno  were 
merely  alluded  to  and  if  no  attempt  were  made  to  state  it, 
there  would  be  no  obscurity.  If,  to  take  another  example,  we 
were  told  that  the  plan  concerning  the  fidicina  had  been 
abandoned  or  changed,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Pseudolus  in  a 
similar  situation  (601  f.),  there  would  be  no  obscurity.  Again 
in  the  Poenulus  the  accomplishment  of  the  first  trick  puts  the 
leno  absolutely  in  the  power  of  Agorastocles,  and  yet  another 
trick  is  begun  against  him !  But  there  is  no  obscurity  about 
either  one,  and  the  audience  would  certainly  have  been  as 
glad  to  see  a  leno  twice  'done'  as  a  Bowery  audience  would 
be  to  see  a  double  penalty  for  the  villain. 

This  study  is  by  no  means  complete,  but  enough  has  been 
said  to  indicate  that  the  Epidicus  is  in  several  respects  ab- 

'The  rehearsal  actually  follows  (111,2)  with  all  the  conspirators 
present. 

'The  retractatores  evidently  cut  all  this  unessential  talk,  cf.  Leo, 
adnot.  crit.  on  v.  503,  who  suggests  that  543-546,  567-577  are  a  briefer 
version  of  the  scene.  This  method  of  curtailing  Plautine  verbiage  was 
probably  applied  to  parts  of  the  Epidicus,  but  the  longer  versions  have 
not  been  preserved  as  in  the  Poen. 


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AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHILOLOGY. 


normal  among  the  twenty  plays ;  that  a  part  of  its  peculiari- 
ties are  probably  due  to  the  poet's  treatment  of  an  unusual 
Greek  original,  and  others  to  the  loss  or  intentional  omission 
of  a  prologue  or  at  least  an  expository  passage  early  in  the 
play,  but  that  some  difficulties,  especially  those  connected  with 
the  trickery,  should  not  be  attributed  to  Plautus.  These  last 
difficulties  were  probably  caused  by  those  who  cut  the  play 
during  the  period  of  its  life  upon  the  stage.  In  its  present 
form  the  Epidicus  is  brief,  complicated,  and  obscure,  with  an 
obvious  tendency  to  present  the  bare  essentials,  particularly 
the  comic  parts,  of  the  action.  It  is  a  sort  of  ancient  'movie' 
whose  action  touches  only  the  high  places,  and  this  is  a  type 
of  composition  of  which  Plautus,  with  all  his  faults,  is  else- 
where not  guilty. 

Arthur  Leslie  Wheeler. 

Rryn  Mawr  College. 


